My Favorite YA Novel

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
by Judy Blume

Summary: Margaret Simon is eleven-going-on-twelve and has just moved to Fairbrook, New Jersey. Margaret must make new friends and deal with going through puberty, but she also is faced with chosing a religion. With a Christian mother and a Jewish father, Margaret feels pressured to make a decision on which religion she wants to join.

Judy Blume's books are classics, even though many of them are pushing thirty years old, and Are You There God? is number one. I would absolutely recommend this book to students because Blume addresses so many teenage concerns in a single novel. The story is timeless.

Though the story would be great for a student to read on his or her own, I don't think there are many curriculum connections for the story. Blume doesn't actually explain much about the specifics of Judiasm or Christianity, and the sensitive puberty topics are best read alone!

MSMS YA Book Club 2011-2012

This year, the MSMS Media Center is very proud to be hosting a YA Book Club for our staff. The book club will meet on the second Thursday of each month for a total of ten months. Each meeting will last one hour after school. Credit will be awarded: each participant will recieve 0.1 credit for each meeting.

The book club is intended to introduce teachers to new and modern middle/school young adult literature. We will discuss the literature in comparison to other literature in the genre, and learn a variety of ways to use literature with students formally and informally. Before each meeting, the participants will read the selected novel (or chose one from the provided list) and complete a blog post reviewing the book.

Our book club is intended to be FUN and CASUAL, while also sparking interest in all of the really great YA literature that has been published in the past five years. We will practice strategies that you can use with students in the classroom to share, discuss, and understand literature on a deeper level.

Does the book club sound like it's right down your alley? Join us for our first meeting on Thursday, September 9 at 3:45. There will be snacks and drinks! Our first topic is "Our Favorite YA Books: Past and Present." Bring a copy (if possible) of your favorite YA book from your time as a YA, as well as your current favorite, to share with the group. You will be added to this blog as a reviewer so you can complete your first post.